


Blooming on the Sill

by pinkmoon



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M, the intersection of unbearable pain and unbearable longing, this is tagged explicit to be safe but barely qualifies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:34:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25958353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkmoon/pseuds/pinkmoon
Summary: “You are only beauty to me,” Sam keened, pinning Frodo’s fearful gaze. He held Frodo's face in his hand. “I swear to you. You are the only good and kind thing in these wastelands.”
Relationships: Frodo Baggins & Sam Gamgee, Frodo Baggins/Sam Gamgee
Comments: 6
Kudos: 66





	Blooming on the Sill

**Author's Note:**

> We're playing a wee bit fast and loose with canon here because I believe they are in love and that's what's keeping them alive and I can't be convinced otherwise

Sam woke to the sound of Frodo’s voice.

It took a moment to register reality, because Sam had been nestled quite gratefully in a hazy dream, or a remembrance. It was green and easy and Frodo had been speaking to him in a voice that was not ravaged by thirst and dust and sulphur. 

But it became clear that Sam was in fact awake, laying somewhere-and-nowhere in the shadow of the looming Cirith Ungol, and Frodo was speaking aloud, continuously, and louder than Sam had heard him for some time. As the curtain of consciousness drew back, it dawned on Sam that Frodo might be conversing with someone. And if so, it could mean danger. He shot up, his eyes adjusting, and found Frodo where he’d left him only a few feet aways. Frodo was lying flat on his back, his hand curled into his shirt, speaking aloud words Samwise could not understand. The more he tried to focus on the sound of it, the more it evaded his understanding, slipping through his ears slickly and unnervingly.

As if Frodo could sense he was being watched, his eyelids opened. They did not seem to flutter lightly into consciousness, the way Sam recalled Frodo stirring gently in his arms as he shook off a heavy sleep. Instead, they peeled back into a fixed and uneasy stare.

“Samwise,” Frodo said, not looking at him. “You’re awake.”

“Aye,” Sam answered, and his tired voice cracked and slid high on the vowel. He sounded frightened, which embarrassed him. “But don’t mind me, sir.”

“We should be asleep,” said Frodo, and seemed increasingly confused as to why he wasn’t. He lifted himself uneasily up onto his elbows. Sam shifted to his knees to keep watch. The clouds had parted and revealed a full and heavy moon, almost green in the sky. It seemed an entirely different moon than the one hung in the Shire’s sky, though Sam knew it was a foolish thought.

“I was dreaming, I think,” Sam said. “Of home. ‘S been a long time since I’ve had a dream at all. But lucky me, I could see your bedroom window clear as anything. Little white begonias were blooming on the sill.”

Frodo’s face remained icy and impassive, but he nodded.

“Were you dreaming too, then?” Sam asked, trying not to seem perturbed. “You seemed to be speaking a whole sermon aloud.”

Frodo’s eyes widened. Something frightened and primal rolled over his features, gone as quickly as it had arrived.

“Frodo, dear,” crooned Sam, coming to sit beside where Frodo lay against a flat outcropping of stone. “You can sleep by me if it gives you comfort.”

Sam did not think he could feel nostalgia or desire for any part of their journey since they’d stepped out of the Shire but he found himself missing how early on they slept intertwined. Sometimes pillowed on a downy floor of pine needles, or against the velvety covering of moss on a stone. When the terrain became less friendly, they curled up tight against each other in the divots in mountainsides. Frodo felt safe in his arms, and Sam felt safer with him slotted so surely against him. They were more certain, then. _And alone, too,_ Sam thought bitterly, casting his eyes about for the sight of cloudy, shining eyes watching them from the darkness.

He touched Frodo’s shoulder and Frodo relaxed again, laying flat on his back. He blinked twice, owlishly, and then proffered,

“I think I was in a dream as well. But I don’t feel as if I’ve slept.”

“Rest against me, then,” said Sam. “You won’t harm me.”

“I could,” answered Frodo suddenly, and then recoiled as if surprised that he’d spoken that aloud. His hand clapped weakly over his mouth, stifling a gasp.

“Don’t be talking any nonsense,” Sam chided, though a chill ran through him that made the hair stand up on his arms. He focused instead on the familiar curve of Frodo’s jaw, the dark arches of his furrowed brow. His Frodo, still here and alive. Still his own.

“We’ve come this far together, haven’t we?”

Frodo nodded stiffly, his hands falling away. They found purchase on Sam’s thighs, winding into the torn fabric of his pants.

“I love you dearly, Samwise. I want to see the begonias, too.” 

“We will,” Sam assured, clasping Frodo’s tense hands in his own. “I promise you, we will.”

Frodo craned his head up weakly, so Sam closed the space between them, supporting Frodo’s skull in one flat palm, and pressed their lips together in a kiss. Frodo did not part from him, inhaling and exhaling shakily into his mouth as he deepened the kiss. Sam was surprised at the intensity of it, the hot _desire_ in it.

“Undress me,” Frodo rasped when he finally pulled back to breathe, his chapped lips like the cool bark of a tree brushing against Sam’s cheek. “Please, I want to feel your hands on me.”

“Yes, Frodo,” Sam obliged, shuddering, feeling a warmth pooling in his thighs traveling up into his hips and groin.

Sam, with shaking hands, unbuttoned and pushed aside Frodo’s loose blouse.

Sam tried hard to keep his face impassive despite what roiled up inside him, the sharp icicle through his stomach, the ash in his mouth. Frodo’s skin seemed pulled so taught over his ribcage that it pulsated with every beat of his heart. Sam was grateful for the life inside his battered body, but not for the dark purple rivulets of veins visible in the hollows of his wrists and elbows, not for the gash chiseled into the back of his neck from a constant weight. For the first time in Sam’s life, the sight of his master’s body filled him with a sense of revulsion. It felt such an ugly, traitorous thought that Sam was repulsed doubly by his own mind.

The Ring glinted blue in the coolness of the moonlight. Sam moved to brush it behind Frodo’s neck so that it would not lay between them, but as he grazed it, it stuck against Frodo’s skin as if seared there. Terrified, Sam left it alone, and tried not to look at it any longer. When he met Frodo’s eyes, they were dilated and unblinking.

“You see me as a monster,” Frodo said, icily. 

“Not never, Mister Frodo,” Sam assured. “I could not.”

“Then you see me as ruined. I see it plainly in your face.”

Sam dipped down and kissed him again, harder this time, letting Frodo fist his hands weakly into Sam’s matted hair.

“You are only beauty to me,” Sam keened, pinning Frodo’s fearful gaze. He held Frodo's face in his hand. “I swear to you. You are the only good and kind thing in these wastelands.”

Frodo’s face twisted up as if overcome by pain. Sam, alarmed, held his breath until Frodo hiccuped and sobbed. Only, no wetness spilled from his eyes, perhaps because his body had no water to spare. 

“Ah, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Frodo wept. “I don’t know what I’m feeling -- ”

“You feel whatever you need. I’m here to hold you.”

Frodo turned his face and kissed the inside of Sam’s palm, fitted so neatly against his gaunt cheek. Overcome, Frodo seemed to sigh, and then quake, and then pulled Sam down flush against him with surprising strength. Sam straddled Frodo’s thigh and hip uneasily, careful not to crush him.

“Slowly, Mister Frodo,” Sam urged. “I shan't hurt you.”

“Please, Sam,” Frodo rasped. “I know that this will help me. I know that it will silence what’s in my head.”

“What’s in your head, Mister Frodo?” asked Sam, but Frodo did not want to answer, clawing at Sam’s wool cloak to remove it from him. Sam noticed the dark copper of dried blood beneath Frodo’s fingernails but could not tell where the blood had come from, or if it was Frodo’s own.

“I want what we did in Rivendell -- ” Frodo began, and Sam blushed so completely and so quickly that he felt faint.

“Oh, my,” he gasped. “That?”

“And again once we disembarked from the boat together -- before we passed into Emyn Muil, do you remember?” Frodo’s voice grew breathy, nearly inaudible, “You inside of me?”

It was more than Sam could have ever fantasized, hearing Frodo speak in such a manner. The heady rush nearly toppled him over, and Sam suddenly felt greedy for it, and not at all exhausted. Frodo pawed impatiently at him, awaiting his answer. 

The Ring flashed again in the light as Frodo’s bare chest heaved. 

“Samwise?”

“Ay, my love,” Sam answered, and quickly shook his head as if clearing away a drunken stupor. “I cannot do that. I have none of what made that easy or possible for us. I would hurt you.”

“I’d risk it,” Frodo urged coldly. “I need you to empty me. Please.”

Sam kissed him again, firmly, and Frodo thrashed for a moment, and then stilled in his arms. The words startled Sam -- “empty me.” He did not understand Frodo’s mind, but he could ease what was animal inside him, what was still flesh and blood.

“Come, love,” Sam invited sweetly. He turned them both in his steady arms until Frodo was cradled against him on his side, Sam’s thigh slotted just beneath his hips. “Please yourself on me.”

He encouraged him by guiding Frodo’s body, cupping a large hand under the swell of Frodo’s backside and urging him forward. Frodo understood, and went heavy and relaxed in Sam’s arms. Frodo floundered for a moment, but soon found a pace, aided by Sam’s strong hand behind him, until he was gasping against Sam’s neck and releasing a warm and very meager amount onto Sam’s waist.

“Thank you,” Frodo croaked as he caught his breath. “I’ll clean you -- ”

“Never you mind, dear,” Sam answered. “It’s nothing.”

“Then let me do the same for you.”

Sam shook his head. “Not this evening. If you want to do me a kindness you’ll hold me.”

Frodo answered in kind by clutching Sam tight against him.

“Of course,” Frodo said, and Sam helped pull Frodo’s shirt closed as they settled in each other's arms. As sleep again began to take them, Frodo spoke quietly into Sam’s chest,

“I feel no one has invented words for what you are to me. You make me alive. Are you asleep, Sam? Yes. You can’t hear me. Stay asleep. I’m so sorry. I’ll stay alive for you.”

Sam kept his eyes closed and feigned sleep. All that was necessary was that Frodo was alive in his arms, and intended to stay that way.


End file.
